Table of Contents
- Matterport Virtual Staging vs PhotoUp: Overview
- Account Creation & Pricing
- Design and Style Options
- Image Quality
- Turnaround Time
- The Results – Which Is Better?
Thinking about using a virtual staging service to market your listings faster and at higher prices?
Virtual staging is an affordable and easy way to show potential buyers a home’s best features, helping it sell for top dollar.
In this post, we’ll help you decide which company to choose, by comparing Matterport virtual staging vs PhotoUp to see which is the better option.
Let’s get started!
Matterport Virtual Staging vs PhotoUp: Overview
Matterport is based in Sunnyvale, California, and with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas, London, and Singapore.
They’ve been offering real estate visual marketing services since the company’s founding in 2011. However, Matterport is best known for its real estate 3D video tours.
Generally speaking, they don’t offer standard photo editing or virtual staging services. Instead, they partner with various virtual staging companies that take the 3D video and then add virtual staging.
What does this mean?
- It means you can do virtual staging with Matterport, but only by using their 3D video platform
- And it also means they don’t edit or virtually stage individual photos
One more inconvenient fact, Matterport services sometimes require you to purchase their equipment and other editing software.
PhotoUp is a global real estate marketing company with virtual staging editors and designers in the Philippines and a customer service team in the US. They were founded in 2011.
They offer a full range of virtual staging services, as well as real estate photo editing, video editing, single property websites, and more.
And PhotoUp does edit and virtually stage individual images.
With that important difference noted, we’ve reviewed the virtual staging services and work of both companies and will share with you the results.
We compared both companies with the following in mind:
- Account creation & pricing
- Design and style options
- Image quality
- Turnaround time
1. Account Creation & Pricing
So, now let’s get on with our comparison of these services.
Matterport
You can open a free account with Matterport. But to use any of their services, they require you to open and pay for a monthly account.
They offer three account options. Unfortunately, the service level differences between these accounts are not the clearest.
Here are the prices for Matterport’s three account options:
- Starter: $9.99 a month — this allows one user to create video tours of up to 5 spaces but has limited sharing options
- Professional: $69 a month — this plan allows up to five users to make up to 25 video tours with a few sharing options
- Business: $309 a month — this plan is designed for teams and allows for up to 100 video tours as well as the Matterport 3D video camera
Matterport’s virtual staging partners take the video tour and virtually stage the selected hotspots for $25 to $79 per hotspot. Most rooms have several hotspots.
As you can imagine, this gets expensive rather quickly.
PhotoUp
Creating an account with PhotoUp is easy and free. PhotoUp uses a credit system for purchasing its services, making payment as easy as possible.
Additionally, they also feature discounts for bulk orders. Here are their credit prices:
- $1 per credit for subscription clients
- $2 per credit for on-demand, pay-as-you-go clients
And here are their virtual staging prices:
- Single set – 20 credits per photo
- Double set – 30 credits per photo
Sets vary in terms of how many pieces of furniture, the number of design pieces, as well as how many frames a single room or space requires.
Next, let’s look at both sites’ design and style options.
Fast & Affordable
Virtual Staging Service
Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.
2. Design and Style Options
Matterport
It’s difficult to survey Matterport’s design library since your virtual staging design options will vary depending on the outside vendor they partner with for your work.
Matterport partners with various virtual staging services, so one can assume the options will be many, but you need to check with them first, likely a slightly time-consuming conversation.
PhotoUp
PhotoUp offers a carefully designed, professional style library featuring 11 virtual staging design style options and 18 room types. Additionally, there are 21 design accessories to choose from.
Design styles from PhotoUp include:
- Mid-Century Modern
- American
- Scandinavian
- Coastal
- Industrial
- And several others.
Now, we’ll turn our attention to comparing image quality.
3. Image Quality
Matterport
Matterport doesn’t seem to offer any virtual staging examples on their website. Probably because they forward all requests to partnering companies, so we can’t say much on image quality for them.
To recap:
- Matterport doesn’t do its own virtual staging editing, but rather, partners with various companies that do
- The virtual staging, therefore, has to be a part of a Matterport video experience
- Individual images are possible, but only after the video is created
PhotoUp
PhotoUp has a dedicated page where you can view examples of their virtual staging. And in contrast to Matterport, they virtually stage individual images.
They also offer video tours, but you’re not required to do a video to get photos.
Their photorealistic virtual staging uses the latest, popular decor styles and also features accessories such as books and plants that make a space look warm and welcoming, yet clean and modern.
PhotoUp Virtual Staging Examples
As you can see, their staging looks modern, fresh, and inviting.
Also, both services offer custom branding of their videos and images, featuring an agent’s name and contact information.
4. Turnaround Time
In terms of the turnaround times, the two companies greatly differ concerning how long it takes to get your finished images.
For example, Matterport’s turnaround time is a bit tricky:
- First, you’ll likely need to have a 3D camera or you’ll need to order one
- Next, you take the video and photos of the property that you’re marketing
- Matterport then takes about 24 hours to create the video tour and model
- Then add from 48 to 72 hours for the parter vendor to virtually stage the tour
PhotoUp’s virtual staging turnaround times are as follows:
- Low-resolution proofs are sent for your approval within 24 hours
- And once approved, high-resolution finished photos are provided within just a few hours
Fast & Affordable
Virtual Staging Service
Interiors. Landscapes. Commercial. Virtually transform any space.
Matterport vs PhotoUp Virtual Staging – Which Is Better?
Now that we’ve examined both services, let’s finalize our comparison of these two platforms to see which one is the better option.
Both Matterport and PhotoUp offer excellent services. But only PhotoUp actually specializes in virtual staging.
Using Matterport for virtual staging requires the purchase of a somewhat expensive video tour platform, and sometimes special Matterport equipment as well.
And let’s be honest, most residential properties don’t require an expensive, high-end video tour for them to sell quickly and for solid prices. So, If you’re looking to have listing photos virtually staged, PhotoUp is your best choice.
Yes, PhotoUp also does video editing — but they don’t require you to use video if what you need are images virtually staged.
Going further, PhotoUp is less expensive than Matterport, charging much less for the same or similar services.
Finally, PhotoUp also has the advantage in terms of production turnaround time, getting you finished, hi-res virtually staged photos two or three days faster than Matterport.
Therefore, in terms of our areas of comparison — ease of use, turnaround time, and price — we think PhotoUp is the better option.
You can even get started today, see how easy it is to upload your images to the software:
Create your free account with PhotoUp now, and get the absolute best virtually staged images that’ll help you sell your listings faster and for higher prices.
In summary, this post compared Matterport virtual staging vs PhotoUp to see which is the better option. And we found PhotoUp to be your better option.
We hope this post helps in your decision-making process. If you liked reading this post, you’ll also want to check out the following, related resources:
